Interview with LoRee Peery

Recently, I interviewed author LoRee Peery. 

How long have you been writing?

My writing journey began thirty-plus years ago. It all started while traveling I-80 in the mid-eighties. I slapped a magazine on my lap, and said, “I could write better than this.”

My husband challenged, “Why don’t you?”

During the week, we spend hours on end without talking much in the daytime. I’ve never asked if he regrets having asked me that question.

Your stories often include reunion. How many books have you written, and why is reunion an important theme to you?

This is a two-fold question. Including novellas, I’ve written The End seventeen times. (There were a lot of years I did other things instead of writing.)

As for the reunion aspect, maybe it’s the idea of unfinished business. Even if the end is hurtful, I like things wrapped up rather than left unresolved. I’ve had failed friendships and relatives that have made promises they never kept. But the big cloud that hovers over my family has to do with my father’s unsolved homicide. From a human standpoint, it’s just not right. From God’s point of view, no answer is His answer. For now, anyway.

On your blog, you describe Nebraskan farm life in the 50s and 60s. You mention a game called Fox and Geese. How is this played?

Fox and geese is a game of tag played in the snow. A huge circle is tracked in the snow with a center, or hub. Then you make snow tracks of eight triangular pieces to form a pie. The fox is “it” and chases after the “geese,” who try to out run the fox. If a person is tagged by the fox, he or she becomes the fox. If anyone goes outside the original path or line, that person becomes the fox while the geese run. It’s a terrific form of exercise and a way to keep warm on frigid winter days.

You've written a story based on your father's unsolved homicide. What is the title? Tell me more about it.

Touches of Time is a fictionalized account of the incident. I tried to write about the case and how it affected me, as well as my obsessive frustration, over and over. Earlier versions of the story were called Unfinished Business, Ultimate Answer, The Touch of Time, Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow. I titled a couple smaller pieces “Murder on a Country Road,” and “The Hidden Will be Revealed.”

In Touches of Time, Sarah Bishop embarks on a journey her mother Lena began, to discover who killed Sarah’s grandfather. She seeks a whodunit answer for her unborn child and the whole family. She’s troubled by what she does, and does not find, but determined to keep searching for answers.

Cold-case Investigator Ford Melcher officially meets Sarah at a barbeque sponsored by a church grief support group. She reveals the time and location of an unsolved crime. He wonders if there’s a link between that old incident and his current case.

Sarah and Ford fall in love as they go through documents and journals Lena left behind. I solved the case through fiction. By doing so, the Lord blessed me with a peaceful heart concerning the matter.

Blurb:

A decades-old unsolved homicide.

A grieving single mother-to-be.

A cold-case investigator.

Sarah Bishop goes through her deceased mother’s belongings and becomes immersed in the details of her grandfather’s unsolved homicide. Determined to find who was responsible, for the sake of her unborn baby, Sarah vows to seek out the answers her mother had failed to find.

Cold Case Investigator Ford Melcher is intrigued by Sarah’s dogged drive to solve the old mystery. His current case has reached a frustrating dead end, but he comes to believe it is somehow linked to Sarah’s quest. His desire to protect her from further hurt is put to the test, especially when he has secrets he’d rather not disclose.

Answers could remain elusive as to who struck Sarah’s grandfather and left him in a ditch. Will the search for those answers open doors for her to discover the life God planned? Can she accept that plan if it includes a man who wasn’t forthright with information?

Bio:

Christian romance author LoRee Peery writes to feel alive, as a way of contributing, and to pass forward the hope of rescue from sin. She writes of redeeming grace with a sense of place. LoRee clings to I John 5:4 and prays her family sees that faith. She has authored the Frivolities Series and other e-books. Her desire for readers, the same as for her characters, is to discover where they fit in this life journey to best work out the Lord’s life plan. She is who she is by the grace of God: Christian, country girl, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend, and author. She’s been a reader since before kindergarten. Connect with LoRee through these links: www.loreepeery.com

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